Tabs

Wednesday, 3 June 2015

Is Nestlé the only culprit?

Nestlé S.A.is a Swiss multinational food and beverage company headquartered in Vevey,
Switzerland. It is the largest food company in the world measured by revenues and
ranked #72 on the Fortune Global 500 in 2014. (Source: Wiki)

One of the most popular
product in Nestlé’s portfolio, Maggi Noodles came under scanner in India. An officer
from state of U.P food safety & drug administration ordered tests on over a
dozen samples of instant noodles. Nestle claims that the product does not
contain Monosodium
Glutamate (Popularly known as MSG: Used for enhancing the taste). Gorakhpur
lab & Kolkata lab (Considered to be among the best in country for food testing)
found the samples to be positive for MSG. In addition Kolkata lab also reported
the samples to be containing dangerously high levels of lead content. Lab
reported 17.2 ppm of lead in the sample. According to food safety regulation
norms in India permissible lead content ranges between 0.2 ppm to 10 ppm depending
on product categories. Instant Noodles falls under a category with a limit of
lead restricted at 2.5 ppm.

Instant noodles are
identified under food category code 6.4.3, which includes “pre-cooked pastas
and noodles and like products” that are “pre-gelatinized, heated and dried
prior to sale”. These categories of food are governed by Codex international
standard 249, standards of food safety recognized by WHO. The masala used in
these noodles is identified in code 12.2, which includes herbs, spices,
masalas, seasonings, and condiments (eg. seasoning for instant noodles), where
the use is “intended to enhance the aroma and taste of food”, according to
FSSAI regulations.

Controversies are not new to Nestlé. In 1974 Mike Muller wrote an article for War on want
called “The baby killer”. Articles focused on impact of alternative introduced
by Nestlé for breast feeding the newborn babies. Swiss
court on the basis of the report, warned Nestlé that if the company did
not want to face accusations of causing the infant deaths or illness, should
change the way they do the business & not to use unethical sales practices.
Following the report Nestlé products were boycott across Europe, UK
& US. The campaign also garnered support from health authorities &
medical professionals in developing nations. Momentum gathered by this even
lead to 1981 formation of code of conduct to govern sale & promotion of
products substituting breast milk.

Mike
Muller has been consistently active against companies which are purely money
minded & does not care towards the health of people.

In
one of the recent articles Muller posed an important question. Though this was
not applicable to just Nestlé as a single company but to the entire
industry. While in 1970’s challenge was high child mortality rates,
malnutrition, quality of water, in today’s times issues have been replaced with
obesity, diabetes & heart diseases. Back in 70’s industry was accused of
harming the health of the babies. Now it has raised to a level of harming the
entire nation. In either cases issues about the food industry’s responsibilities
remain unchanged.

UN’s
current millennium goals are due to expire in 2015. In such case, question of
importance is should the sustainable goals focus on unsustainable & unhealthy
lifestyle of riches or on the plight for the basic needs of the poor? Also,
should UN actively engage with global food giants to control products &
marketing to improve people’s health. For answers to these questions we will
have to wait & see until we discover/ invent machines that can take us to
future.

This
article is not intended towards the questions raised at Nestlé but
towards the general issues relating to the food industry.